The Blueshirts and Irish Politics

This book covers a marginalised period in Irish history. Many people are aware of the existence of the Blueshirts, yet their knowledge is usually drawn from a snapshot, which sees the movement as an aberration of Irish life in the 1930s which toyed with the ideas of fascism. At a domestic level, this book shows how the movement challenged the ascendancy of de Valera and forced a realignment of traditional pro-Treaty forces under the name of Fine Gael. Within this framework new material drawn from government archives, private papers and interviews with former Blueshirts, shows how divided the movement actually was. By exploring the wider world of comparative European fascism the book places this strand of Blueshirt thinking in its proper context and demonstrates how non-radical the Irish interpretation of fascism actually was. Includes Bibliography, Index and 20 tables of data. Mike Cronin lectures in History at Sheffield Hallan University. He is the author of 'A Complete History of Ireland.'